were enough to warn him of the storm rolling up the sky, though as yet only one or two drops had actually fallen. Eusebius probably exaggerates when he speaks of “ many others” along with Clemens and Domitilla (iii. 18), and the period of terror was admittedly short (H. E., xx. 9-11, cf. Τότε. Apol. 5), but the crisis was sufficiently acute to open John’s mind to the issues at stake. It is this sense of the irreconcilable antagonism between the imperial cultus and Christianity, not any specific number of martyrdoms, which accounts for the origin of the Apocalypse during the latter years of Domitian. A cursory glance will show that its language presupposes a situation more definite and serious than any covered by earlier references to persecution for The Name or My Name, which in all likelihood. as 1 Peter indicates, obtained more or less generally after the crisis of 64 Α.Ρ. in Rome. John sees another name set up against the name of Christ, and he stamps it as the essence of blasphemy to recognise any such title. What Christians were summoned by him to do was to say ‘‘No”. Their positive confession of the Christian name re- solved itself practically into a refusal to admit the legitimacy of the emperor’s divine names.
This power of penetrating to the eternal issues underneath the conflict of the day is one note of the true prophet, and in touching the Apocalypse we touch the living soul of Asiatic Christendom. The book comes forward as a work of prophecy (cf. notes on i. 1, 3; xi. 18; xviii. 20, 24; xxii. 6-7, etc.). As such it is designed for the instruction and encouragement of the Christian society (1 Cor. xiv. 3f.). it fulfils this design by means of visions depicting (a) the approach and certainty of the Christ’s return, (b) the warnings and comfort of God for the churches during the interval, and (c) the bliss and terror of the world to come. Ordinarily the revela- tion takes the form of rapture or vision. This, again, may pass into an address in which the prophet leaves the véle of seer for that of spiritual adviser. Or, rhapsody may become a song (ψαλμός), reflecting the antiphonal outbursts of melody (1. Bz. 2138-2140, 3242) in the con- gregation (cf. the responsive Amen in v. 14, vii. 12, the Trisagion in iv. 8, and the Hallelujah in xix. 1 f.) which were based in part upon earlier Jewish psalms of the synagogue (as Pliny found in Bithynia: ‘‘carmen Christo quasi deo dicere secum inuicem’). Finally, the prophet may work along the lines of traditional apocalyptic oracles which were more or less familiar to his hearers, just as the author of Daniel took Jeremiah’s seventy weeks as one of his texts. All these varieties are represented in the Apocalypse of John. But, whatever rvéle he assumes, the seer or speaker is pre-eminently a